New Journalism – In-Depth, Unbiased Coverage
News is basically an unpublished account of real-time human activity, that seeks to influence, enlighten, or inform the reader. The first necessity of news is that it must not be published anywhere else before. This is normally done through newspapers, magazines, radio or television.
The second requirement for a news article is that it must be written in a way that is newsworthy. A news article is newsworthy if it fulfills some important need or motive of the reader. One obvious purpose of news articles is to promote a product, a website or a person. Another purpose of the news article is to criticize an establishment or a politician.
In the news article, there is a certain sequence that must be followed. First the writer has to find out whether what he is writing is newsworthy information, then he must compare it with other sources, and finally he must evaluate it by its suitability to his purpose. As we know, there is no such thing as the right news article, just the one that fits your purpose. But if you are an internet marketer, you can’t expect any good articles without a news angle.
The most newsworthy information in this context is the in-depth analysis and reporting on critical events. In other words, if you are writing about the Indian elections, you don’t necessarily need to write about the national election results. But, if you are writing an in-depth report on the financial crisis in Greece, you will obviously discuss the crisis in Greece and the possible remedies and policies to come out of it. Thus in-depth reporting is the key for newsworthy information.
There is a very famous saying, “there is no such thing as a stupid question”. Well, this also applies to in-depth reporting and news story, because no two people have the same opinion about a particular subject or issue. Thus an in-depth piece on the human resource related problems in an organization may give both the competitors and the management a tough time, but the overall story would remain a human interest story. Thus if you want your in-depth news piece to be published in many newspapers and get widespread attention, you have to have a good angle.
You can draw a distinct parallel between the editorial page of a typical newspaper and the news section of a news portal. The editorial page of a daily newspaper carries information about local events, and the business news that affects the lives of the people in the region. But, the news coverage of the editorial page carries a political slant, and hence the coverage becomes all the more subjective. However, a news portal has the freedom to approach a specific topic from a completely different angle, and this allows it to present the news coverage as a straightforward story, without taking a political stance.